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How to raise my chlorine level in a salt water pool

We just bought a house and it has a salt water pool. I did some testing today to see if I knew what to do next. Well i don't. All the reading were pretty good except chlorine. Apparently there is no chlorine in the pool. I assume its not supposed to be like that, even in a salt water pool. I don't know what to do to get the chlorine level back up and I also dont know where salt comes in. How do i add it, where do I add it, and how do i know when to add it. Please Help. The water is also kind of cloudy.

Re: How to raise my chlorine level in a salt water pool

Welcome to TFP trisha! We will help you get going here so no worries.

You said that you did some testing and your water is cloudy (good to know). Did you use a test kit of some sort or did you take a sample of your water into a pool store? We need to know what your test results were so if you could post those, that would be great.

If you do have a test kit, what test kit do you have?

We also need to know some specifics about your pool. What type of pool do you have? How many gallons is it? What type of filter do you have? What type of salt water chlorine generator do you have? Post what you can and we will get you the information that you need.

Have you begun reading the pool school articles yet? There is excellent information in there. See the link in my signature line to get you there.

Re: How to raise my chlorine level in a salt water pool

Welcome to TFP! As 257WbyMag said, we need some more information to be able to really help you.

Yes, you always want some chlorine in the pool, unless you are fully winterized. If the water is very cold it can go a while without chlorine, but even then you don't want to go too long.

Salt is easy enough. You can use water softener salt, which most hardware stores carry. But before adding any salt you need to know what the starting salt level is. Your salt water chlorine generator (SWG) may have a salt level readout, or you may need to have the water tested to see what the current salt level is.

Re: How to raise my chlorine level in a salt water pool

Originally Posted by trisha

We just bought a house and it has a salt water pool. I did some testing today to see if I knew what to do next. Well i don't. All the reading were pretty good except chlorine. Apparently there is no chlorine in the pool. I assume its not supposed to be like that, even in a salt water pool. I don't know what to do to get the chlorine level back up and I also dont know where salt comes in. How do i add it, where do I add it, and how do i know when to add it. Please Help. The water is also kind of cloudy.

In a saltwater pool, an "SWG" or salt water generator converts the salt in the water into chlorine. So in your particular case, it's possible the unit is not working....or the water chemistry is such that the chlorine is being consumed as it is being produced by the SWG (the cloudy water could be one indication of a problem like that...but there are other causes for cloudy water, which is why we like to see a full set of test results)

Did the prior owners give you a run thru on the equipment at all? If not, you can post some pictures of the equipment and we'll help you figure it out.

While you begin to process the information contained in Pool School....if it's warm where you are, in the meantime I would suggest that with your pump running, you slowly pour in one small jug of Clorox bleach (liquid chlorine), in front of your return. Do this again in the morning. This might help a little in preventing your cloudy water from turning green....

If you post test results we can advise you better. We need to see:

FC
CC
PH
TA
CH
CYA

Check out Pool School for an explanation of these abbreviations.

Welcome to the forum! We'll help you get this straightened out!

(Others were quicker posting than me!) See you'll get lots of assistance....

Re: How to raise my chlorine level in a salt water pool

Giving us the water temperature would help as well. Chlorine generators do not operate at water temps much below 52-55 degrees. Everything could be spot on but if the water temp is too cold, then it will not function.